by H. D. Gordon
Surah nodded to all the Hunters they passed, who nodded in return and followed her with eyes that hung in the shadows of their hoods. As they reached an opening in the Mountain, five Hunters guarding the entrance stepped to the side, allowing them to pass, allowing the Mountain to swallow them.
There were no shadows in here, for not even shadows could live in such complete darkness. After a few moments in the void of blackness, Theo snapped his fingers and a sphere of light, an apple-sized thing that swirled perpetually like the eye of a hurricane, appeared in front of them.
“Where are they?” she asked, deciding the silence between the two of them was too much in this small, dark space.
Too intimate.
Theo nodded his head forward, sending the light sphere down the tunnel ahead of them. The shadows scuttled away from it like insects.
“Just around that bend, my lady. They’ve prepared a room for us. The Hunters who last saw the Stone will be there.”
Surah had already begun to move forward, dropping Theo’s arm to walk independently, ignoring the look he gave her as she did so.
When they reached the room–which was no more than a small rounded cavern with three burning torches hanging on the wall–they found the two Hunters in question seated at a small, old table. It just barely fit in the small space with its four chairs. The two chairs opposite the Hunters were empty, and Surah inclined her head, using her magic to make one slide back from the table before Theo could pull it out for her. She took a seat. Theo stood a moment, then did the same.
Surah pushed her cloak off her head, revealing her lavender curls. She raised her chin, her violet eyes settling on the Hunters. “I am Surah Stormsong,” she said.
Both Hunters nodded in unison, obviously aware of who she was, and said, “My lady.”
“May I have your names, sirs?”
Both males were stocky and wide-shouldered. Their hair was cut close and their eyes were black, like midnight and ink, as were all the Hunters’ stationed at the Dark Mountain. Working so close to the Black Stone had its effects, but it was a necessary and honorable duty to uphold. Whether they were suspect or not, they deserved their princess’s respect.
The one on the left answered first. “Rand Fishwell,” he said.
Surah nodded. Common name.
The one on the right said, “Brim Ironwater.”
Another nod, slightly less common name.
“Can you tell me what happened Sir Fishwell, Sir Ironwater?” she asked.
“Wish there was more to tell, my lady,” said Fishwell. “I went in at eleven to check on the Stone and it was there.” His black eyes flicked to the other Hunter. “When Ironwater went in at midnight, it was gone.”
Surah sat back in her chair, sure to keep the dread of what she had to do next off her face. She slid the glove off her right hand.
“May I ask you a question, princess?” said Ironwater.
Theo shot the Hunter a glare, and Surah decided she liked Ironwater for not flinching.
Surah nodded, curious. “Of course.”
“Are you going to be the new Keeper?”
She smiled politely. On second thought, she should have declined his request. “That matter has not been decided, sir,” she said, and placed her ungloved right hand on the table, palm up.
Ironwater sighed and placed his rough hand in hers.
Surah took a deep, silent breath and let it out. She could already feel the darkness in the Hunter that was a result of years spent near the Black Stone. It was a feeling that quite simply sucked the light out of the world.
“Now tell me again, please,” she said.
Ironwater nodded. He repeated the story that Fishwell had told. Surah’s sixth sense revealed that he was telling the truth. She released her hold on his hand and patted it gently, then offered hers to Fishwell.
Same story. Same results. The two Hunters were telling the truth.
Surah sat back in her chair once more, giving Theo a nod that confirmed their stories. She bit the inside of her bottom lip a little as she wondered what she was supposed to do next, and wished for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past month that her brother were here. Keeper was Syris’s job, and he had been good at it. She hadn’t the slightest clue as to how to lead an investigation of this magnitude, or any magnitude, for that matter.
She had a feeling it was going to be a very long day.
“The room that held the Stone,” she said. “Has it been searched?”
Theo answered. “Of course, my lady. I searched it myself before I came to King Syrian. There is nothing there.”
The way he said this made Surah’s back rise a little, as though this were a silly question, as if to point out that she didn’t know what she was doing. Or maybe she was just defensive because she didn’t know what she was doing. There had been no implication in the Head Hunter’s tone. This was why she could never figure out if she disliked him for warranted reasons or not.
Surah stood from her seat, and the three males followed suit. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she told the two Hunters.
Then, she turned and left the room, pulling her hood back over her head, the heels of her boots clicking on the hard earth and bouncing off the black walls of the tunnel. Theo followed right at her side.
“What next, my lady?” he asked, and Surah got the impression that he knew exactly what to do next, and was testing her. Seeing if she was up for the job.
She continued down the tunnel that led out of the Mountain, wanting to be free of its suppressing weight, willfully keeping the snap out of her tone. “Now we go see about Merin Nightborn,” she said, and Theo smiled as if she were a toddler who’d just recited her ABC’s.
The stone that hung around her neck, tucked into her shirt, pulsed against her skin as she thought again about casting a lightning strike at the Head Hunter. Of course, she didn’t. There were other matters to attend to, matters that seemed to be growing more imminent by the second.
A Highborn was dead and the Black Stone was missing. It didn’t sound like a coincidence to her.
Not at all.
Chapter 4
Surah
The scene of Merin Nightborn’s death was just a small bar off the countryside. As soon as Surah saw it, she wondered what a lady like Merin would even have been doing in a place like this—though she had her suspicions, knowing Merin.
Places like this existed solely in the country land; just a small wooden building, not like the trendy bars in the city. The road leading to it and the parking lot were a dusty brown, and two dozen Hunter’s griffins were lined up in front. The massive birds eyed me as I passed, their feathers catching the light of the moon and their heads cocking this way and that.
The sign over the bar read DRINKS, painted in a fiery red that stood out on the wooden building. Soft light spilled out through the glass door, and the Black Mountain loomed miles in the distance. It was kind of lovely in its simplicity, but Surah felt out of place here immediately in her black cloak and expensive black boots, which caught the dirt on the ground and held it as she walked.
“What could Merin have been doing here?” Surah asked, more to herself than to anyone else. The sight of the place had made her forget Theo was still at her side.
“That is an excellent question, my lady,” Theo said.
Surah took a deep breath of the fresh country air before stepping into the bar, where the aroma would surely be booze and cigarettes. The short heels of her boots clicked on the wooden steps as she climbed up the porch.
Flicking her wrist, the door to the place swung open, and Surah stepped inside.
It wasn’t as she had expected, not dirty and dusty, but instead, clean and polished and warm. The lights were set intimately low, the walls a richer, darker wood than the exterior of the building, and paintings of different scenes of the countryside hung on the walls. They were beautifully done oil works, the colors and strokes having captured perfect portraits of the land at optim
al moments, as if the artist had sat out all day to wait for the light to fall just right.
Wooden tables with chairs sat in the center of the room, and red booths lined the walls. To the right was the bar, a polished oak that gleamed under the soft lights. Rows of liquor bottles lined the shelves behind it, standing like soldiers, shoulder to glassy shoulder. Surah found herself taking another deep breath, and finding the smell not stale or unpleasant, but clean and inviting, like a grandmother’s home.
There were no customers, of course, but Hunters were everywhere, standing around in their black cloaks, moving from here to there, writing things down with their wands. When they saw Surah and Theo, they all stopped what they were doing and bowed to their princess and Head Hunter. Surah waved a hand, telling them to rise. One of the Hunters strode over to them, a tall man with a wiry build and nervous, flicking eyes.
The Hunter bowed again when he reached Surah. “Princess,” he said.
“Rise, sir,” she said. “Are you the Chief in this jurisdiction?”
The Hunter nodded. “I am, my lady. Hunter Sand. Very pleased to meet you.”
“And I you, Sir Sand.” Surah looked around at the Hunters, who were looking back at her. “Have your men moved anything?”
Sand shook his head, and Surah could tell he must have just recently been promoted and was uneasy about the job. She thought she could sympathize with that.
“No, my lady. We were waiting for the Keeper.”
Surah nodded, choosing to ignore the obvious question on his face asking if that would be her. “Show me, please,” she said.
Sand led Theo and Surah over to the bar. The Hunters there parted and lowered their heads respectfully. Her breath caught a little as she saw Merin Nightborn sprawled on the floor, her fine cloak fanned out around her. Her red lips were parted but pulled no air, and her neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Very much dead.
Surah’s stomach did not flip or twist at the sight, but something spiraled there. Maybe it was a little intuition, and it told her that this was in no way going to be an open and close case. Something serious was going on in her father’s kingdom, and until it was settled she had an obligation to help. For the second time this day, she thought, Well, shit.
“Who owns this establishment, Sand?” Theo asked, his eyes going hard at the sight of Lady Nightborn.
“We’ve got the owner in the back, sitting in his office,” said Sand. He paused, that nervousness back in his eyes. “He’s got Jude Flyer with him.”
Surah raised an eyebrow at that. Jude Flyer was a pretty well known Defender. Not highborn, but very good at what he did, nonetheless. Some of the Highborn Defenders used to laugh at the little male, but that had stopped after he’d won some pretty tough cases. Flyer was uncommonly good at finding evidence that exonerated his clients, even when it looked like they were a step away from the chopping block, their hands all but painted red. The mention of him only made Surah’s unease grow.
“Let’s see them,” Theo said, a smile coming to his handsome face that Surah didn’t like one bit.
Theo allowed Surah to go first, as was the custom. She flicked her wrist, using a bit of magic so that the door to the small office behind the bar swung open. Then she stepped inside.
And paused in her tracks.
She couldn’t say how she knew it was him, just that she knew. He still looked the same as in her memory, even though he had grown older, of course. He had gone from a boy to a man, his body having filled out and grown hard with what she knew had to be years of actual labor. Not the cultivated muscles that Theo wore, but harder somehow, as though they had been earned through callouses and sweat. Dark hair had grown in across his strong jawline, and his eyes were still the emerald of tropical ocean water that Surah remembered so clearly. He wore only a flannel shirt, faded jeans, and work boots on his feet. His position was relaxed, reclined in the chair behind the desk, fingers laced together over his chest, as though he had been sitting right there for hours.
Surah pulled her eyes away from him and they settled on Jude Flyer, who also looked as though he’d been sitting a while. He ran a hand through his thin, slicked-back hair and rose from his chair. After a moment, as though he had momentarily forgotten his manners, his client did the same.
Both men bowed to their princess.
“Princess,” Jude said, offering a chubby-fingered hand. Surah sighed mentally as she held her own out to be kissed, glad once more that she always wore her gloves, especially since it was the same hand Jude had run through his greasy hair. “It is an honor,” continued the Defender.
Surah smiled tightly and nodded. She pulled her hand from his and took a seat in one of the two chairs opposite the desk, all too aware that the other male’s eyes followed her the whole time. Surah glanced over at him to see the smallest change of expression cross his face, a slight movement that made her cock her head just a fraction.
From behind her, Theo said, “Good evening,” and Surah thought maybe Charlie’s expression had shifted—only momentarily, his face was back to blank already—because of the Head Hunter.
Charlie.
That was his name. She remembered now. Just like that. Charlie Redmine. A good, simple name. She rolled it around in her head a little, thinking maybe rolling it off her tongue would be pleasant as well. It was hard to equate him with the boy from her memories. He had grown into such a…man.
She slapped those thoughts away. Those thoughts were no good. Those thoughts were futile.
Theo took a seat beside her, and Surah wished very much for no reason at all that the Head Hunter were not here with her, that she could do this on her own, even though she didn’t even entirely know what she was doing. Surah’s job in her father’s kingdom over the past ten years had involved two things; helping the king make diplomatic decisions, and looking pretty and proper for the public. Most people just thought she did the latter, but many of the laws and assistance programs her father had passed over time were of Surah’s creation, and the public was glad for them. She’d never cared about getting credit for the work. She was just glad to be giving back.
But being a Keeper and being a politician were two different things. Work that involved hands-on action, not just power of the mind.
“What happened here?” Theo said, his words clipped. Surah restrained herself from shifting uneasily.
Jude Flyer answered, “Mr. Redmine was in the process of closing this establishment tonight when Lady Nightborn arrived. She sat at the bar, ordered a drink. About five minutes later, a Demon entered and attacked. It killed Lady Nightborn and fled.”
The Head Hunter’s eyes were locked on Charlie, and Surah had to stop herself from shifting uncomfortably again, though she had no idea why.
“Is that so, Charlie?” Theo asked, making the name sound like a dirty thing.
Charlie nodded, his emerald eyes holding the Head Hunter’s steadily, without fear. “Yes,” he said. “It happened fast. I tried to help her, but the Demon seemed to be on a mission. There was nothing I could do.”
“Why would a Demon be here in the middle of nowhere?’” The incredulity was as thick as molasses in Theo’s tone.
“That’s a good question,” Charlie said.
Surah found herself staring at Charlie’s lips, listening to the way the country land rode his words. It was so unlike the Highspeech she was used to, almost exotic. And then she pulled her eyes away and stopped those thoughts again. No good, those were. She needed to focus.
“You realize,” Theo said, “that you are the only witness to the death of a Highborn lady. You expect us to believe you?”
Charlie shrugged, still holding the Head Hunter’s gaze. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “I thought that was your job. I’m just telling you what happened.”
Surah stiffened. The whole room seemed to stiffen. She couldn’t blame Charlie for saying this. Theo’s very tone was accusatory, but it took balls to talk to the Head Hunter in that way. Really big balls, especiall
y from a commoner, and Surah found herself admiring Charlie Redmine’s courage and wishing he would shut up at the same time.
“We very much intend to explain it,” Theo said, his words clipped. “That’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Surah removed the glove from her right hand, wanting to stop this conversation for reasons she didn’t really understand. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the desk, palm up. Looking straight at Charlie, her heart picked up a little in pace. She cursed it for doing so, and willed it to stop its girlish yammering.
“Would you mind repeating the story for me, Mr. Redmine?” she asked, her sweet voice the exact opposite of Theo’s tone.
Charlie’s eyes met hers, and Surah felt something warm spiral in her stomach. She bit her tongue to try and force it away. His eyes seemed to really look at her, to almost burn through her, and she wondered if all women found his gaze so penetrating or if her hormones were just getting the best of her. This made her think of Lady Nightborn, and suddenly, Surah thought she might have an explanation for what Merin had been doing here. This made a terrible feeling of dread spiral in Surah’s stomach.
Charlie’s large hand came up and rested in hers, his palm rough and warm, his fingers engulfing hers. Her heart jumped again, and she told it sternly that that was quite enough out of it. She needed to concentrate.
“Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Redmine” she said, and swallowed when Charlie just sat staring at her.
She could feel rather than see Theo beside her. She didn’t like it.
“It’s just like Mr. Flyer said,” Charlie began, “Lady Nightborn came in and ordered a drink around closing time. The Demon came after. I’ve never seen anything like it. Its eyes were glowing red. It slipped in so fast, broke Merin’s neck and left.”